Number three disk drive manufacturer Hitachi GST is helping out number two supplier Western Digital by buying a media substrate plant it no longer needs.

The plant makes the aluminum disk platters used in hard drives, and it's located in Sarawak, Malaysia. The WD employees there will transfer to a Hitachi GST subsidiary. The price was not disclosed and the transaction is expected to close in a month or so.

The Sarawak facility was gained by Western Digital when it bought Komag a couple of years ago. Now, due to the recession damping hard drive demand down, it no longer needs the manufacturing capacity.

WD has a second media substrate plant in Johor, Malaysia and will consolidate its production there. It also has a third substrate plant in Penang, Malaysia. Any substrate needs these plants can't satisfy will be met by buying product from external suppliers.

It's great that no-one is losing their job with this transaction. ®

Related stories

• Updated Hitachi GST whacks Seagate in the Savvios (16 October 2009)
• Xyratex signals jump in storage array capacity (14 August 2009)
• WD unfurls 1TB Scorpio (27 July 2009)
• Hitachi catches up with new 2TB drive (14 July 2009)
• Hitachi GST buys Malaysian platter plant (3 July 2009)
• Western Digital debuts 2TB power sipping drive (20 May 2009)
• Disk drive manufacturers re-hiring in Thailand (5 May 2009)
• WD makes more profit than expected (24 April 2009)
• Western Digital snaps up SiliconSystems (30 March 2009)
• WD releases 2TB external HDDs (26 March 2009)
• Hitachi takes losses, chops jobs (3 February 2009)
• Hitachi Data Systems SSD flashes into view (15 December 2008)
• Hitachi GST to OEM Intel-based SSDs (2 December 2008)
• Comment Hitachi GST spots oyster, seeks HDD pearls (20 November 2008)